SPIDER MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK – …Wut?

SPIDER MAN: TURN OFF THE DARK is about as amusing and as awkward as this image and the play’s name suggest. Bono’s songs range from passably forgettable to godawful. The sets and imagery are striking, but they try so hard to be “comic-booky” that they often overdo it in all the wrong ways (similar to Ang-Lee’s HULK).

It may have been partially affected by the performances, but the script felt to me like a watered down Kool Aid version of everything I love about the character. Only J Jonah and the Goblin felt like lively interpretations of their comic personas. The real highlights were the stunts and choreography, but even those felt a bit stilted to someone who’s seen Spidey in motion in four features and countless cartoon iteratives.

If you find yourself in New York and need some spectacle, there are probably a lot of better ways you could go, but I’ll admit that this play is a fun way to kill an evening.